“Embroidery Resistance” Meets Atticus

On the walls of Atticus on Chapel Street, just above diners’ heads, is a row of mixed-media artworks that brighten and enrich the space, making it feel both more vibrant and more homey. But a closer look suggests complication, symbolism, layers of meaning. 

As accompanying labels explain, the pieces are loaded with significance. The first encapsulates a prayer from the culture of the Huichol in Mexico for health, home, and a long life. In the second piece, the flower — associated with the Aztec deity Huitzilopochtli — was used to remedy fever and burns. The third represents the Aztec and Mayan god Quetzalcoatl and his abilities as a seer. It only gets richer from there.

The pieces are part of ​“Embroidery Resistance,” a solo show from New Haven artist Sarahi Zacatelco running at the Chapel Street bookstore and cafe through the month. Zacatelco’s work ​“is focused on depictions of women and bringing representations of my culture and identity to this country. Feminine expression is powerful, and I believe we need to have more representation of the indigenous women by women in the arts.”

In this show, Zacatelco focuses on embroidery as a means of cultural preservation. She explains, in an accompanying note, that according to a Zapotec legend, Spanish soldiers entering the valley of Oaxaca in central Mexico in 1521 destroyed a very old ocote, a tree with spiritual significance.

That particular tree is gone, but its story lives — ​“transmitted from generation to generation” along with a wealth of cultural knowledge, festivals, and legends, by a variety of means.

One way is through embroidery, passed down from ​“mothers to daughters,” Zacatelco states. ​“It constitutes the heritage of this community because it represents and symbolizes elements that give them identity … the processes from which materials are transformed into clothing” and ​“the legends, ceremonies and uses of this clothing in ritual and daily practices constitute” an ​“intangible cultural heritage” that people who receive it can take with them wherever they go, whether it’s from the countryside to a city within Mexico, or across borders to the U.S.

The education about that heritage continues from piece to piece. We learn about how the Spanish destroyed a temple to the goddess Tonantzin north of Mexico City and erected in its place the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe after, in 1531, an Indigenous man saw apparitions of the Virgin Mary there. We also learn that today, for many, the Catholic Virgin Mary and the deity Tonantzin are considered one and the same; in other words, the Indigenous faiths remain, despite colonization. We learn about the goddess Xochil-Quetzal, a ​“patroness of pregnancy, childbirth, and the crafts practiced by women such as weaving and embroidery,” as Zacatelco writes. And we get a taste of the deep role of chiles in traditional foods, that they have spiritual as well as gastronomic importance.

As rich as it is on its own, Zacatelco’s show has particular resonance in Atticus, a place that celebrates food and books together. Zacatelco gives us a glimpse into her culture, and outlines a sense of its complexity and profundity. She also reminds us that such complexity and profundity can be found all over the place; if you’re in Atticus, on the pages of the books on the shelves all around you, or even on the plate right in front of you. The symbols are all there to be deciphered; if we know how to look, we can see them woven right into our everyday lives.